The Art of Reading: Tim by Colleen McCullough

I can remember the exact time, I can even remember the exact day I fell in love with reading. I was in fourth grade and my teacher at the time wanted to challenge us all to read books. One day in class she showed up a bunch of different diplomas. All of them in different colors. On them it said you have read 200 words, then 400, then 600 words, and it kept going up to 5000 words. Besides being in different colors and having the amount of words you read on them, they were decorated with drawings. And of course the teacher promised color stickers too!
 
 
Also there was room for the teacher to write out the student's name, by hand. This was 1988, I might add, way before there was a computer in each home. The teacher had to fill everything out by hand and it was meant to be neat to give it that extra umf. To say you have done well, and so I am making an effort, kind of nice. 


The overall acceptance of this challenge was fairly lukewarm, most of my fellow students read what the teacher told them to read. At times it was her telling us, “Pick a book and start reading.” I can’t remember how many more besides myself who loved this challenge. I only remember there were a few of us who must have gotten encouraged by those diplomas and were driven to see, hmm I wonder how many of those I can collect?! 


I can’t remember what book I started with or the one that followed, or the next one after that. I do remember the day when I got a hold of the book Tim by Colleen McCullough. By the time I found that book I think I had reached the 2000 mark. I must have been either at the end of the 4th grade or beginning of the 5th, but I was only around 11 years old.
 
 
Tim is about a woman who is single and in her mid to late 30s. She becomes the protector, and falls a little bit in love with a man named Tim. Tim is special, you love him from the get go and people around him aren’t very nice. He’s in his 20s but has special needs, his mind is that of a child's. In this book you get to follow how Mary and Tim form a bond, how she protects him from the evil and unempathetic people who don’t understand him. You follow Tim as he discovers an unknown world to him with the help of Mary. 


The book Tim is my first book love. It’s the reason why I’ve since read hundreds of books each year. It’s the reason why books are my ultimate time well spent. This book is why I write, and why I am who I am. It’s why I like telling a deep, emotional and detailed story that takes you all the way into the core of your heart.
 
 
It spurs my love of writing and reading stories about the underdog who proves everyone wrong! Because Tim proved the world wrong about all the things they thought he was, or could and couldn’t do. Tim was so much more than anyone ever expected!